


LARP...A Lot...

by furloughday



Category: Merlin (BBC)
Genre: AU, College, LARP, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-02
Updated: 2010-11-02
Packaged: 2017-10-13 01:00:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/131065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/furloughday/pseuds/furloughday
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They LARP. College AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	LARP...A Lot...

"Merlin."

"Only my guild-members call me that," he told the pile of blankets that represented his roommate.

"Sis did predict I'd be stuck with the nerdy sort."

Merlin laughed, eyes squinting up. "What'd you expect? We're doing physics."

"-And one who stereotypes endlessly. Great," the roommate said. "Which, now that I think about it, I suppose explains the LARPing. Bunch of excitable folk stereotyping people from _other_ time periods."

"I'll bring you back a staff, how does that sound? Maybe a nice oak one with a fat gem at one end."

"You can go away now."

Merlin's roommate burrowed deeper into the covers, and Merlin looked out the window with a wistfulness that was near useless, he'd be out there so soon. He set about leaving.

"Lovely day out. I'll let you get back to sleep," Merlin told him, but before he slammed the door to his dormroom he thought he maybe caught a glimpse of one dark eye, as the roommate warned him: "I'll have a crossbow or nothing."

Merlin burst out of the dorms, into the finest day he'd seen in months. He had high hopes, the kind that were impossible to quash. He had plans to make Saturdays his reprieve from real life.

He met up with that one girl with hair extensions where she had been waiting for him at the bottom of the walk, past groups of students who remained civilians over the weekend rather than heading off towards a field just south of Warwick. She wore heavy under-liner and was rather smirky.

They met the van, with three other passengers, only one of whom Merlin had met, a girl called Gwen who'd been tabling for the event. She had big brown eyes and freckles, and a slight sarcasm about her, and he had been in an impressionable mood when he had signed on for this, charming girls like Gwen always seemed to get the better of him.

The van ride was only thirty minutes, and Merlin had decided against packing his ipod because this wasn't the proper time for it. Instead, he spent his first car ride in ages in a reflective state, earholes unplugged, thinking about LARPing. He considered the members he'd met so far on campus, privately thought of them as a shifty bunch that didn't seem to so much like people from other kingdoms as respect one another for their stick-with-it-ness and attention to details of long-since-deceased trades like basket-making and metallurgy. He was distantly excited about joining on, had his plasticy membership card in his trouser pocket with a big ole grin to prove it, but really just felt like an interloper, a spy for some outside party.

"How's dorms?" that girl, Morgana, asked him just as their ride was ending, the van pulling down a dirt road and through a copse of trees. She was a fourth year and thus able to ask these things like she thought maybe conditions had changed since her time there, for better or for worse.

"It's not as bad as all that," Merlin said. "The showers are a bit rank, but I've met some good people, I've kept my door firmly open and played music all day long, and now my room's being used as something of a sitting area."

"So you don't try, is that it?" she said. "What else do you get up to in there?"

"Sometimes we've even got a bit of a LAN party going on," Merlin told her. He wiggled his fingers for no reason he could specify, and said: "Play it and they will come."

"And what might this be?" she gave the kerchief that sprouted from his jacket pocket a gentle tug.

"Tis the main element of my _faux_ medieval garb," he told her. He yanked it out and began to tie it around his neck.

The van crunched into park at a dirt patch near some other old vehicles. They all tumbled out, and he didn't hit his head on the door frame, his day was that good. He grabbed a cooler of fruit and drinks, and then stumbled alongside the girls and out onto the field.

The field.

"So many people!"

"At least five hundred, I think that was the last count," Gwen told him.

After flashing their membership badges, which had been thirty quid that Merlin could have spent on something far more useful (educational/hallucinogenic/socially-acceptable) they headed towards the tents, walked down a row, past flapping pennants and rough-looking folk, and five minutes later, Merlin was dropping the cooler under an awning of canvas, next to a red and gold stripey tent.

This was going to be ridiculous.

After they'd set things up, and Merlin had been introduced to some men who were muttering seriously over some maps, Merlin stood by the table and asked the most important question of them all:

"Well then, who am I?"

He'd been waiting on this question, didn't want to push it, but also felt ungrounded without an identity to apply over his trouser/loose-shirt combo like a second jacket.

Instead of an answer, however, the conversation veered.

"Hey aren't you-" A voice came just then, loudly from behind.

When Merlin looked over, he had to slap a hand over his eyes.

"Augh!"

"Oh yes, armor," the guy said. "Quite reflective."

Merlin blinked a bit, and squinted.

"You were tabling," he said, recognizing the blue of the guy's eyes, the confidence in his gait, and the douchiness of his hair. He was dressed in brown, like some sort of hunter, maybe.

"Tabling," the I-go-to-your-uni-but-am-probably-a-business-major student repeated.

"Nevermind," Merlin said. Gwen had fallen back, and was pulling a chair out of the direct sunlight to sit. Morgana was somewhere to his left, assessing. Merlin half turned back to her.

The guy picked up a stick off of the table, and snapped it in half.

"So, what am I? Knight? Master of the guard?" Merlin asked them. He searched for another occupation, anything, only minorly better at this here than he was in real life. "Cousin of the crown prince?"

"Nope. No way in hell, sorry mate," said the blond, revealing a set of heartbreaking teeth. "Definitely a peasant."

"Peasant!"

"And one who doesn't grow much to eat, by the look of things."

"I am a bit hungry," Merlin conceded.

"No one starves in our kingdom," said the definitely-business-student, almost angrily. "And our soil is excellent."

A tall man dipped his head to stage-mutter: "Arthur, perhaps we could trade him to Cenred's kingdom. I hear he'll take anyone."

"Now hang on a minute!" Merlin said. His identity was being harangued, and so soon after arrival! "I'm at least merchant class!"

This felt, in itself, a concession of the highest order. After all, he didn't want to end up a poor fool over cross the way, melting tallow over an open flame, and certainly couldn't be trusted to work with food. He had secretly been angling for court scholar, if he were to be honest, one who would, due to the hopefully unrealistic elements of the game, eventually be elevated to Dark Prince.

But he knew he'd probably best start humbly.

"I'm going to a career counselor in a few weeks," Merlin told him. "How about I let you know what she tells me?"

"Yeah, you do that," Arthur laughed. He looked Merlin up and down. "You know, there's-"

"Something about me, yeah," Merlin cut him off. "Heard that one before. 'S the ears. It'll take you awhile to notice, but that's what gets people."

Arthur seemed nonplussed.

"I was going to say you sounded Irish," Arthur told him.

"Hm."

"And that piece of cloth you've got snagged around your neck," Arthur pointed.

"Yeah, it's supposed to be there."

"Oh. Well. What's it for?"

"It's for cleaning things, of course," Merlin told him, and shrugged over at Morgana. "To be honest, I thought this place was going to be truly medieval, real dirty."

For some reason this Arthur was giving him a 'don't think i didn't just catch you' sort of look, to which Merlin had to frown, mouth flattening, and Arthur just pursed his lips in turn, and raised an eyebrow. Merlin thought about taking his neckerchief off, to dust something to prove its utility, but then he'd have to fold it again.

Arthur shook his head, and entered the tent.

"Who's he to choose, anyway?" Merlin muttered to himself. The noise of hundreds of medieval-enthusiasts faded back in, that Gwen girl weaving a length of ribbon into Morgana's hair and a few weedy fellows dressed as sentries stood straight and tall at attention all round the vicinity of the tent.

"Well, he's whoever he wants to be."

Merlin turned in place for a look at the tent across the row.

"This is a land where your efforts define you," a dark-haired man explained, coming forward. "One succeeds only by merit. It is the dream that forms the reality."

"What is there to succeed at?" asked Merlin, who really just liked to play make believe and had hoped they wouldn't have to do anything here.

"I'm Lancelot," the man said. "Follow me."

Merlin didn't tell anyone he was leaving. Perhaps people noticed, perhaps not. As peasant he suddenly felt invisible, a free agent with a mistakable face.

He followed this winsome fellow down a few rows of tents, swimming under his calm, if idealistic, speech patterns. He was introduced to some old women with pails of water, who fawned over Lancelot while the man stood, stoic and accepting the praise, and also two people who were playing on a chalked board with giant chess pieces.

"What kingdom are you from, then?" Merlin asked.

"I belong to no kingdom," Lancelot was examining a bouquet of wild flowers at a booth.

"Oh, I didn't know you could do that," Merlin said. "Huh."

"You can't," Lancelot said.

BAMF, Merlin thought appreciatively. Lancelot continued:

"Every week I plant my tent closer to those of Camelot, in hopes that the others will begin to associate me with the people of Camelot. From there it should be a simple move. I shall arrive early on one day soon, and seat myself at the refreshments table and when all else arrive they will recognize me and be thus correct in thinking that I am a part of the kingdom."

"A mental blindspot," said a shirtless man. "Sublating yourself, as it were, assimilating a smaller part into a whole. Made invisible, hidden within."

"Is this-" Merlin said. He looked between the newcomer and Lancelot. "Brothers?"

"I am Gwaine," the man said. He looked at Lancelot. "Brothers in arms, no doubt. Are you a noble?"

"Unfortunately no," Lancelot replied.

"Quite fortunate, I'd say," Gwaine said. "For I abhor the lot of them."

Lancelot accepted Gwaine's serious arm-clasp.

"Right," Merlin said, and trailed along behind.

Merlin felt a niggling doubt that possibly he should be getting back, should find Gwen and Morgana and should ask for further instructions. Maybe he was supposed to be doing some peasantly chore, like pretending to clean out stables, or make soup, rather than spending an hour wandering around a field of nerds of all ages who were selling their wares and sometimes beating each other with wooden swords.

"I like the man who did the whittling," Merlin told Gwaine, once they were rounding back towards the area flagged off by Camelot.

"I also enjoyed the whittling," Gwaine told him. His smile was catching. "You know, we've a lot in common, you and I. I feel like I know you from somewhere."

"What do you study, by the by?" Merlin asked. He felt the weird warmth of commonality uncurling in his chest, like maybe he'd met a friend he could spend time with in real life. "Perhaps we've got a course together? It's just my first month at uni."

"What is a...yoo-nee?" Gwaine squinted at him.

Ah, Gwaine was one of those. Merlin rethought this deep friendship.

"Come, to table!" Gwaine slung an arm round Merlin's shoulders, and Lancelot trooped along beside them, and it was nice.

They had a drink, then a few more, and suddenly it was eleven o'clock, Merlin read this off the sundial pedestal, tilting his head to make it out.

"Hang on," he said loudly, to anyone and everyone. "It was eleven a few hours ago. Does this thing work?"

"It's four," Gwen told him, because he had arrived back at their station somehow. She sat, red and gold behind her, beating out some dents in what was maybe a chest plate, pretty in pink.

"We usually use bells, nowadays," Gwen said.

"Huh."

"You've met Gwaine, then?" Gwen asked.

"Yeah, he asked me to get drinks!" Merlin was proud of his ability to make friends, even if they were a bit too invested in reenactment.

"I knew it!" Gwen said. "I knew he asked everyone."

Despite the smug expression on her face, she seemed so sweet, so real, like Merlin was being shown polaroids of flowers.

"And Lancelot?"

"D'you know everyone?" Merlin asked. Gwen was something of a role model, something to aspire to, Merlin thought out loud.

"I have become familiar with much of the community," she said. "After all, I've been a part of the community since I was a child. My father..."

At this she stilled. Merlin had sat beside her at some point, and was in the position to put a comforting hand on her arm.

"Tell me if it's none of my business, but-"

"He died," she said. Merlin sobered.

"Oh, I'm sorry," he said.

Gwen went back to hammering at the armor, the steady clink clink of the mallet ringing out clear despite the constant bustle up and down the row, the swishing of tent flaps and sounds of a small buttery down the way, the relentless clack of churner to barrel. A group of children flocked past.

Merlin's thoughts turned inward, shocked from the sunny buzz of the field, so present and withdrawn from the tethers of real life.

"My father's gone as well," he said. Gwen glanced to him, smiling inappropriately.

"But this is wonderful!" she cried.

"E- Excuse me?"

He considered reality in this situation, and how in any way "wonderful" could describe it.

"I had no idea that your father was a LARPer!" she continued.

It took a moment, but at the end of that moment of thorough mental exercise, he still didn't understand. He said: "But, my father wasn't."

Then Gwen's face really fell.

"Oh!" She put a hand to her mouth.

"Wha?"

"I'm so sorry, I didn't-" she said. "I meant that my father had died in the LARPing reality. Struck down by the king for aiding a sorcerer. But he's still alive in real life, of course he is. Oh, Merlin, he's living in Sussex...I see him nearly once a month."

"Right," Merlin said, feeling uncomfortably embarrassed. "Well, then."

There was nothing that could save a situation such as the one they had found themselves in save a mutual esteem.

"Look," Merlin said. "I'm not saying I'm bored here, but I'm not quite sure if I'm supposed to be doing something specific, or if I'm meant as a stock character, which is fine by me. Just, is there a to-do list perhaps? What am I meant to be doing?"

Gwen looked relieved, but contrite, like she might just end up trying to buy his love to make up for the gaffe after this for quite some time.

"Well," she said. "How's your work ethic?"

"S'alright," Merlin lied. He picked up someone's skein of water and drank it down.

"Come along, then," Gwen said.

He was led by an arm down three stops, to a group of peasants by a particolored tent.

"Brought us another one, Gwen?" a woman called.

"Merlin," Gwen said. "May I introduce the EFAT?"

"Environmentalists For Appropriate Technology," a man in short trousers elaborated.

"Ah," Merlin said.

The people milled about, holding pieces of things in their hands and placing them in some logical pattern that Merlin was not yet able to decipher. The man was watching him, Merlin could feel it.

"I heated a teaspoon of water with a magnifying glass once," he offered. "Took bloody hours."

"He'll do," the man told Gwen.

After that first day, Merlin could claim to have helped craft the left corner of some wood frame that would eventually hold some sort of medieval sewage-to-clean-water filter system.

"A bit anachronistic-" he had said.

"Just keep propping that up," the man had replied. "And besides, the Romans brought the waste removal system to England."

"I don't think they created a-"

"Could you hold these nails?" a woman stuck a few nail heads carefully between Merlin's teeth. "Bite down. And, good."

When they were dropped at the dorms at nightfall, Merlin was too tired to tell his roommate anything.

 

*

 

They'd taken the van together this time. Arthur spent the entire ride with an arm slung sarcastically along the seat.

Trouble came when they parked.

"Oh, I seem to have-"

Merlin pushed his hands around in his backpack, and then in his pockets again, a useless gesture, but demonstrative, like maybe it would invoke some sort of empathy.

"You can't come in without your membership card," the gatesman said from his fold out chair, not bothering to look the least bit apologetic.

"Look," Merlin said. "I'm wearing trousers with a hole in the pocket. It must have fallen out on the way here. It won't happen again."

"Come along, Merlin." Arthur called back, still walking, the girls even further on ahead. But Merlin was held back by the invisible law of the LARPing grounds.

At a few paces, Arthur turned and said, "What now?" with a look on his face that went more like: "God help me."

"He's not to pass this line without a member's ID," the man shrugged. "And as he seems to have lost it-"

"Why don't you go talk to your supervisor about your attitude problem, then," Arthur told him, stalking back. "While my manservant helps unload my things."

"Manservant," Merlin mumbled, while the man said: "Who d'ya think you are?"

"I'm Prince Arthur, and you're wasting my time," Arthur said. Merlin laughed aloud, but stopped when he saw that Arthur's jaw was set in a hard line and his eyes flashing, like he wasn't some maybe-marketing student from south London, in on a football scholarship.

Merlin stood his ground, but averted his eyes. This was a land of chivalry and the knight's code, and it was entirely possible he had just incited some sort of duel.

Instead of growing angry, however, the man bowed swiftly from the hip and said, "Really, my most esteemed apologies."

"Don't let it happen again," Arthur told him, in the tone of a nobleman reprimanding a misguided guard, rather than a twenty-one year old upstart taking his role-playing game too far.

Arthur steered Merlin away by the elbow, saying in a tone that brooked no argument, "Never leave me again."

"What the hell was that all about?" Merlin wanted to ask, although normally he wouldn't mind either way, would just accept it because, seriously, he was high like half of the time anyways.

What he ended up saying was: "what makes you so entitled?"

"The way of the land," Arthur told him, and stalked on ahead like he had forgotten Merlin's very existence.

As soon as he could, Merlin dragged Morgana into one of Camelot's many supply tents.

"I certainly didn't join the LARPing community to spend all day indoors," Morgana told him, watching as Merlin shifted around in his Vivian Westwood boots trying to find his words.

"Who is he?" he finally asked. "Why is he so entitled, and why do people listen to him?"

"Arthur?" Morgana asked.

Merlin nodded, and Morgana said, "There's someone you should meet."

Merlin hadn't thought to enter the main tent. It was surrounded by guards, for one, who managed to look serious and like this wasn't some boring way to spend their Saturday, stock still for hours and holding fake spears.

Entry was apparently easy, though, the guards pretty much useless, because Morgana just breezed on past with Merlin in tow, ducking in between the tent flaps and into a space lit only by candles and disparate sunlight.

Below the vaulted tent ceiling sat a middle-aged man.

He was a man who looked as though he had the sort of income that would allow for more luxurious costuming than the rest, outfitted as he was in velvets and silks. Merlin himself had struggled his britches and pair of loose shirts (patriotic in coloring) from a rack at the 99p shop just down the way from that fish and chips shop under the bridge.

He shivered. It was about ten degrees cooler inside, and quiet.

Upon the man's head sat a plastic crown, and all at once Merlin knew the man's identity.

"May I present His Royal Highness," Morgana told Merlin, and shoved him slightly between the shoulder blades into something of a bow.

"Hello there," Merlin said. "I'm Merlin."

The man glowered up at him and said, "Right."

"I'm pleased to be a part of your kingdom. I'm a sciences major at the University of-"

"I am a doctor of the sciences," the man told him. "Don't think for a moment that your mask of social normalcy can fool me. Dismissed."

Merlin's mouth screwed up at this, wondering what the man saw, decided it would be best to back away, and out of the close atmosphere of the tent.

"Ah, father." Arthur ducked in at that very moment.

"Arthur," the man said with a warmth that had seemed hitherto impossible.

Merlin ducked out as Arthur stepped in.

"And there's your answer," Morgana said. She took him by the arm once more and led him down a grassy slope, to where a group of people his age were leading a dance class.

Merlin felt the chill of the tent for long after. If that was what that tent hid, he was never going inside again.

 

*

 

Merlin ran into Arthur on campus, again and again, and the final time was when Merlin was entering a classroom, and Arthur came in through the other door and came up beside Merlin, even though the other students were all walking in to be seated.

Merlin looked up, noting that Arthur's features were sharper from this vantage point, below.

"Plebe," Arthur's expression seemed to convey, but instead he said, "I'll be promoting you to royal servant of my household. Come pick up my armor at the field. I keep it in the football sports shed."

Merlin was left feeling both pleased because a prince had come to his class and talked loudly to Merlin for anyone to hear, and annoyed because, well, Arthur wasn't really a prince, so, _rude_!

 

*

 

Merlin went home the next weekend.

"What is this tomfoolery!" Uncle G said when he found Merlin up at dawn trying to shine some sort of arm brace.

He had no intention of saying, "You know, there's this one guy in my Live Action Role Playing group who I can't really figure out, and I maybe kind of stayed in it 85% for him, even though it's only been three weeks and I'm already behind in schoolwork."

He couldn't just quit. Call him hopeless, but every time they accidentally met on campus it felt like destiny or something equally antiquated, how he'd been blinded from the first, when he'd seen Arthur initially, a pretty boy seated at a recruiting table by the bookshop, looking impatient. His was a shallow lust.

Instead of admitting all this, Merlin told Uncle G that perhaps his job at the chemists could be useful, and scratched Camelot club office's number onto a paper with a nubby pencil.

Just like that, Uncle G was in for the long haul, somehow consulting chemist as well as adviser to the king, easy as pie.

Merlin's mother was both impressed and amused that Merlin had come home for the hols with a sack of era-non-specific chain and plate mail, and Merlin had overheard her telling Old Tom by the gate, "Armor rather than a sack of unwashed clothing to launder like the other first years."

"We've already met some Saturdays," Merlin told her excitedly over toast that had been beaned, and Hunith hummed at the coffee pot as Merlin paid some serious attention to his veggie sausage patties, forgoing the oatmeal gruel because he ate enough of that as it was at the dining hall and also while LARPing.

"I'm pleased you're making friends," Hunith said.

"And some enemies," Merlin told her. "Some of the blokes over in Mercia literally get in fist fights with our guys."

"That's nice, dear," she said. "I'm so proud of you for being a knight, so honorable. That explains the armor, then."

"Oh, no no. Most of the others are knights," Merlin told her. "Like, this one boy. I'm, er, helping him out a little with his costume. He doesn't seem to have the know-how to take care of it, and I thought it might be helpful if I-" he thought of Arthur chucking the bag of equipment at him and saying 'I expect it spotless by next week.' "-if I polished it up for him."

"Always so helpful," Hunith said. "And what are you then, dear?"

"A scholar of sorts," Merlin said, now recalling how he had perused four of their resident librarian's books to prove to Arthur that forcing someone into unpaid employment wasn't allowed by LARPing rules. He screwed up his face. "There's a lot of studying involved actually."

"Don't you have O-chem to focus on?" Merlin's mother asked, which was the closest she ever got to asking him to quit, because Merlin was the first person in their family to attend uni, and they both didn't want him to mess this up.

"I'm trying to integrate the two," Merlin told her, uncertain. He became unsure as to why he had signed on in the first place, why he hadn't chosen a nice club instead, one that didn't involve getting ordered around.

But by the end of the week, he felt fresh and ready to return to his studies and, most importantly, his kingdom.

On the train back Friday night, he received a text that read: _Meet me at the field at 8am with my armor._ and Merlin found himself smiling and wrote back: _Miss me?_ to which Arthur didn't respond.

The sun rose bright and Merlin was up with it, and when he went down to the track it was to see a bunch of players in uniform jogging about the field, dedicated. Merlin went to the sidelines, passing near the players who weren't currently in. When Merlin muttered something about jocks, a burly fellow threatened, good-naturedly because he was just that dangerous, to feed him mud, and Merlin went to take a seat a ways back from the chalked lines.

"C'mon, c'mon," some fan was saying beside him.

"How long's left, then?" Merlin asked her.

"It only just started, 8 o'clock," the girl told him, and smiled at Merlin's frowny face. "Don't worry, you haven't missed much."

Merlin had never been a fan of sports, although he'd been to the pub loads of times with friends back home. He picked out Arthur easily in the distance, because, although there were a bunch of people on the field, none of the rest had a giant arrow with the word "Prat" blinking above them.

"That's my boyfriend," the girl said. "The blond one, with the, you know, the face."

Merlin's stomach bottomed out, and he looked back at the field, all panic.

Phew, there were a lot of blonds with faces.

"Which-" he began. The girl was eager to supply this information.

"The goalkeeper. He's called Sean, a senior. Who're you here to see?"

"Oh," Merlin said, not aware he was here to see anyone, really. "I've just stopped by to return something to a friend." He patted the bag beside him, and it jangled. "He's one up front on the right. The one who just headbutted the ball across the field."

"The captain, you mean?" she said. "You're friends with-"

Merlin became aware that he could use this situation to his advantage, and filed away the name she gave him for future jokes if the relationship with Arthur was indeed going to be a snarky one. The girl was impressed that he knew "Arthur," resident golden boy and not-at-all-business-student, and he was impressed that she knew everything about football and could speak coherently at this early hour of the day. They were fast friends.

"Did you just want me to watch you play?" he asked when Arthur came to stand over him an hour later. His friend had left him, and he was one of the last ones on the field, having drawn the line at waiting around outside the locker rooms. He was nobody's bitch.

"Don't be ridiculous," Arthur said. "I needed my things back, didn't I?"

"But you told me to come at 8. Why didn't you just say to come at-"

"Come on, we've got to meet the van."

Merlin didn't stand, just remained lying on the grass, head pillowed by the bag of armor, an orange rind on the grass beside him from the half-time refreshments.

"You're rather good," he said. "And I'm tired, I had to get up really early."

"Of course I'm good, I'm always good," Arthur said. "Now come on, we've got thirty minutes."

"You never told me you were a history major."

"Merlin," Arthur said. "I've an important practice with my men today, don't muddle my head with your prattle."

Merlin sighed and got to his feet, feeling fatigued. Seven glorious days of lazing about at home had weakened him considerably. LARPers didn't seem to do hitpoints, but if they had, his would be low.

When Arthur didn't take the armor from him immediately, Merlin sighed again, and shouldered it, and jogged to catch up.

"So is your name really-" Merlin hedged.

"Merlin!"

"Right, I just think it's funny, is all."

"I'm sure you do," Arthur said, and stormed on ahead.

That afternoon, Merlin helped the EFAT folk draft plans for a medieval swimming pool which Merlin had very little faith in, and then lay in the sun for three hours watching Arthur train a group of twenty men in preparation for the joust. He waved at Lancelot, who was fitting in quite well, as was Gwaine, who grumbled just last week about getting on well with Arthur, and Merlin had told him, "Can't help yourself, can you?"

He picked at a few blades of grass. He wondered if Arthur was one of those boys who'd grown up in wealthy families, who'd worn jackets when visiting their relatives and had been forced into fencing lessons.

After he'd dozed and gotten bored, he went and played medieval frisbee with Gwen. Then they went to get medieval-style ice cream, and when Merlin returned to the practice field, they were just packing up their equipment, and Arthur's army looked almost like the real thing.

 

*

 

One day, Arthur was standing behind him in line at the Caffe Nero near the university. Merlin had never had that full-body reaction before, but he did now, shoulders tensing, and face heating and the barista frowned over the till as Merlin fumbled in his pocket for his wallet.

"Aren't you the type to get coffee at independent coffee shops?" Arthur said, like it was a crime. He shouldered past Merlin to the register, ordered a coffee with extra shots.

"Hey, I was-"

Arthur paid for his coffee.

 

*

 

It was interesting how quickly Merlin's focus shifted from "making friends" to "making Arthur his friend." Gwen and Morgana were sweet, and probably more interesting by miles, but this interest in Arthur made sense; it was always gratifying to spend time working out a puzzle, especially one that practically begged for his attention.

 

*

 

Merlin was surprised to find his uncle had taken up residence in a small tent near the latrines.

Merlin had always been close with his two family members, and from that week on, Merlin spent some time helping him mix dubious concoctions.

"Be careful with that," Uncle G would often say. And then follow it up with: "That's a concoction I brewed up according to the ancient lore of Galardahulk (making up the name on the spot and tapping his very modern pharmacology text) It prevents rashes." or "That's a potion that can burn one's enemy's face right off."

Uncle G's chemist table became quite popular with the folk of Camelot as well as those passing through from other kingdoms. Merlin went off one Saturday, stepping between the rows of tents back towards Mercia, to say, "Um, announcement, everyone. My uncle, the chemist, says he has a new line of hangover cures."

The revenue the business brought in went to supplies and to buying ale, which Merlin could get behind, even if he only ever had three drinks at most, and in any given month he probably spent more money on supplies like crackers and paracetemol than he did the drinks themselves.

"Are we legally allowed to do this sort of thing?" Merlin asked Arthur. Arthur who was sharpening a broadsword in a menacing fashion, but humming some 90s pop tune. "Wait, you haven't got a permit for that either, have you? Good grief."

"I'm a prince," Arthur said. He swung the broadsword in a manner that suggested beheading. "Prince's don't require-"

"Yeah, yeah," Merlin said. "Hand it over, then, and let me sharpen it. You'll have more time to train for the joust."

"We're having a mock-up," Arthur said. "A fake sword-fight with some guys from Mercia."

"I thought you all don't really get on."

"Not really," Arthur said. "But this is just good sportsmanship. Will you come?"

"To watch you beat on each other with metal sticks?" Merlin asked.

Arthur shrugged and tried not to look hopeful.

"Yeah, fine," Merlin said. "But don't think I actually care about this sort of thing. Give me a good book any day. And don't smile like that, it's frightening."

He followed Arthur to an open stretch of grass, to where the two opposing groups of knights were waiting.

The day nearly ended in disaster, but Merlin wasn't going to think about that.

He got in the van just after, 3pm, time for a nap, lulled by the yelling of peasants and laughter of those who were carefree, jobs in firms and offices forgotten for their twelve hours a week. He just wanted to be indoors.

When he woke, it was to find the van already in motion, his face was smooshed against the cushion. The sky was a dusk-blue out the window lending a dusk-calm to the inside of the van as well, the quiet cut only by the occasional muttering of Gwen and Arthur on either side of him, and the zipping of a few cars passing by on the motorway.

 

*

 

"I just wanted to call to say," the voice was sharp through the earpiece, just as Merlin had expected it to be.

"Hm?" Merlin lifted his head blearily to look at the clock, but couldn't find it. It must have been the following day, he couldn't have slept for as long as it felt (a year).

"Oh, you know what I'm trying to say."

"Wha?" Merlin asked.

There was a silence. He pressed his face back into the pillow.

"Just, thank you," Arthur said. "For pushing me out of the way. Accidents happen, and I don't know how you did it, I thought you were pretty far away on the sidelines, but you managed to get there in time."

Merlin rolled onto his back, and flung an arm over his eyes. He listened to Arthur breathing. He imagined him somewhere across campus, up at dawn, maybe at a desk.

"That guy was trying to kill you, that guy from the other kingdom."

"Nonsense."

Merlin felt like he was talking about some other life. Or like he was living two, or something, one with swords and one with pens.

"Are you in shock?" Arthur was asking him.

"No," Merlin said. "M'asleep."

There was a laugh of disbelief, quiet now.

"That wasn't so hard, was it?" Merlin mumbled, just in case he actually fell back asleep soon. "Admitting you need my help."

The line went dead after a moment, but he held his cell in the palm of his hand for a while longer.

 

*

Merlin was at his computer when Morgana came to his door that afternoon and sat on his bed. She glanced to his roommate's sleeping form, where he'd stumbled back from somewhere and fallen with a loud creak of springs to pass out again, and Merlin turned his chair fully.

"Don't worry about him, he'll be out until early evening."

"Merlin," she said. "It was brave what you did."

"Didn't really think about it."

Morgana shrugged, but looked at him like he had hung the moon, or at least saved her friend. Merlin held out a box.

"Pocky?"

They crunched in silence for a moment, until Merlin said, "Everything alright?"

"Not really, no. I've just received an email from the group over at Uni of Birmingham. My friend Harry over there, Harriet, she says that there's rumors of members of our group changing camps."

"What," Merlin said. "No one is leaving our kingdom. And no one would leave just before the joust!"

"That's just it," Morgana said. "We've got three weeks, and that gives people time to join other kingdoms, those who don't want to be affiliated with a bigoted king."

"I wouldn't call him bigoted…"

Morgana gave him a look.

"But Morgana," Merlin said, and then whispered, because it somehow felt wrong to say. "Magic isn't real."

"It's the principal of the thing, Merlin," she whispered back, tears in her eyes. "It's a matter of personal freedom. People don't give up one of their two days off work to be told what to do."

Merlin didn't want to listen to this sort of thing, but he couldn't very well just shrug and say 'meh, freedom' either, so he let her continue on.

"Do you know how many good men and women Uther has forcibly ousted since our founding in September 2008?" she asked. "Too many. Gwen's father, as I'm sure you've heard. And even the first day, he kicked out a young theater major for declaring his character had magic, and his mother called the Uni board and had a fit. Of course, the threat wasn't taken into account because the club isn't necessarily affiliated with the campus."

"Oh," Merlin said. He'd known it was bad, but honestly hadn't put much thought into it.

"And the worst part," Morgana said. "Is that people can't help it. They're either magical or they're not."

This was something his roommate might have laughed at had he heard. Merlin's mind boggled as it once again tried to feel out the shady border that ran between LARPing and real life.

"Ah," he said.

"Some people just accidentally enact magic," Morgana told him.

"That sounds," Merlin said. "Unfortunate?"

"It is unfortunate," Morgana said.

At that moment, Junes and Tim from down the hall came in in a rowdy shoving of shoulders.

Taking one look at the serious looks on both Morgana and Merlin's faces, they set in with their A game, and by the time Morgana had to head out for physics, her eyes were red where she'd wiped away laughter, and Merlin accepted a hug, and said, "Don't worry. It'll be alright, you'll see."

Merlin was, however, not so convinced as to go without advice from his elders.

"These are just rumors," Uncle G said over the phone.

"You think?" Merlin was desperate.

"I do," G said.

"Alright, I'll try not to worry," Merlin said. Trying to be that good nephew, he asked, "how are things?"

"To be honest, I'm very glad you called," G said. "Ever since I spoke with that nice king in the tent, I've been anticipating the next stage of development."

"Who?" Merlin's mind reeled as he tried to level his image of the king, that freaky figurehead, with 'that nice king.'

"Uther Pendragon," Merlin's uncle said. "He's been looking to build something on the tournament grounds. Something more permanent."

"He wants to take over as reigning King," Merlin said. He whistled. "I'd heard he was a megalomaniac, I didn't realize this was so serious."

"Merlin!" When Merlin remained judgmentally silent for a few moments, Uncle G took it as a cue to continue. "Now, we were thinking something of the times, 6th century or thereabouts, perhaps a small cathedral. We could make it out of plywood and spackling. I've been looking at floor plans of the great cathedral of Chartres-"

"Did you just say _shart_?" Merlin gasped.

There came a lengthy pause.

"Let's continue this conversation later, shall we?" G said.

"I'm sorry, I just-"

"Never you mind," G told him. "About the tournament. Let's just wait and see."

 

*

 

Merlin lived from weekend to weekend. From Monday to Friday, he pestered and was pestered by the guys in the dorms, and procured bottled beverages from the minifridge next door. On Saturdays, he was pestered by Arthur, who dared him to drink potentially hazardous mixtures brewed in tents by people without alcohol licenses. Lancelot, who'd taken to lurking around the refreshments just as he'd said he would, often joined them.

Situation being thus, it only made sense that Merlin would be found one Thursday clutching his lab report in sweaty hands, asking: "Are you going to be grading on a curve?"

"That grade is already curved," the professor told him.

Merlin could tick off things he had learned over the weekend, at least one for every finger, including how to swing a mace without hitting yourself in the eye, how to make iced elderberry juice with a little lemon twist, and how to knot a rope so one could climb safely out a window.

He may have failed his chemistry test, but they would win the war.

 

*

 

Suddenly it was early December and it was wretched all of the time, and Merlin didn't want to leave his dorm room for anything, not class and not really hanging around the tents, because it rained, especially out in the country.

"Do you need a tissue?"

"I'm so glad to see you," Merlin said. He wrapped Gwen in a giant hug, their rain coats sticking and slipping and before he knew it he was leaning in, closing his eyes for maybe a nap.

"Eep, Merlin," Gwen laughed. She patted him on the back, wetly. "You may be thin but you're rather heavy."

He moved off to lean against the wall and Gwen tucked the hood of her yellow rain jacket back now that she was sheltered by the overhang.

"You look bad," Gwen said. "Why are you out of bed? Over the phone you promised me you'd take care of yourself."

He waved his hand in the direction of a classroom door.

"Got to," he said. "Every class I've got is kicking my ass, and the only thing I'm actually worried about failing is Old English, and that's not even a class."

"Excited for the weekend, then?" Gwen asked.

Merlin scrunched his nose, and Gwen laughed at him and blew in the mittened cup of her hands to warm them.

"Naw, got better things to do," he said, but was crap at lying, always had been.

"Oh, come on, you'd actually miss it?"

"Course not," he said. "I've got to build an eco-friendly trash bin of some sort with that ridiculous club of yours, of which you're not even a member, might I add. Don't think I haven't noticed."

"They needed help and I found them some," Gwen said.

"I've got loads of mail to shine," Merlin reminded her.

"I'm still not sure why you allowed him to talk you into that," Gwen said. "You do realize that you can do whatever you please."

"It's just- The nerve!" Merlin said, but he did know, and that's what was confusing to him.

"Of Arthur?"

"I received this message, right?" Merlin said. "This message that said nothing like 'Hello, how are you, I heard you're ill, perhaps I could give you some time off, seeing as you go to school as well.' No, instead it said, 'Need my room cleaned, come at once.'"

One look at Gwen's face told him he had turned into someone else when he wasn't looking, or maybe he'd had it in him the whole time, the type of person who ranted just as another excuse to talk about himself.

"Sorry, Gwen," Merlin said. "How are you doing?"

"You know Arthur," Gwen sighed instead, and Merlin was surprised to find that he did.

 

*

 

His head was something of a cloud, and the rain hadn't let up. They were in their most impermeable tent, but still the air was chill, and the blue light from the outside came in eerie and soft.

"Come on," Morgana said to him, the sound of water against canvas a blank fuzz behind her words. "Isn't this a bit romantic?"

He went to make himself a ginger tea in a daze, boiling the water in a water heater he had hidden behind a crate connected to the plug strip, sucking electricity from the generator. If anyone asked, he imagined he would scoff and say, "Why it's Magic, of course," but it was more likely he would follow that up with, "No, no, not magic, I've brought an electric kettle."

His hair was damp in his beanie. While he waited for the water, he slanted a look at Arthur, who was speaking low with Lancelot at the far side of the tent. Gwen caught him looking, and smiled brilliantly. He shook his head, and then ripped open a tea bag.

"I just feel, I dunno," he said. "Muddy. Cold."

Rain pelted the canvas, and it felt reasonably possible that the inside of the tent was the whole world, the five of them the only people in it.

He sat back with his tea, and resumed his transcribing of the list of knights that would be participating in the pre-joust. His penmanship was something he was proud of. He should have been a penmanship-major.

"Well I think it's bloody romantic," Morgana said.

"Fine, fine it is," Merlin said. "Romantic, it so is. Rain, wet, yes, and chocolate and tea, and you're gorgeous."

"Killed it, though," Morgana said.

"It won't happen again," he said. "I promise."

If he sworled the A in Arthur's name a bit on the downstroke, it was accidental.

He spent the next half hour trying to make Morgana laugh at a few stories about his week, and tried to tell them loudly because he knew that Arthur would come on over.

"Alright then," Arthur said, like clockwork when Merlin had dotted the final exclamation point. "Finished up?"

"Yes sir," Merlin said.

"Must you always mock me?" Arthur sighed. He pulled a stool between Merlin and Gwen, while Merlin retorted with, "Must you always be mockable?" and Gwen stemmed this with, "Arthur, have you spoken to the king lately?"

Arthur nodded, and took up the parchment Merlin had been working on. He examined the list. Merlin thought of Uther, maybe in conference with other rulers, perhaps seated alone in candlelight. He had no idea what the man did all day.

"Twenty men on this list," Arthur said. "That's still plenty. I'll call it in then, shall I?"

"That's the final list," Merlin nodded.

Arthur took out his phone and made the call, and Gwen went to talk about medieval poetry with Lancelot, as they'd both taken French courses.

"Jealous you're rubbish at languages?" Arthur asked, after he'd clicked the phone shut. When Merlin didn't respond because in that minute's pause he'd fallen into a quiet stupor, head thick. Arthur leaned against him to get his attention.

"Who said anything about rubbish?" Merlin asked.

"You forget that I'm often subjected to your misspelled texts."

"But that's in English."

Arthur knocked him with a shoulder, and this was becoming pretty much too obvious for Merlin to handle, and so he said, loudly, "So, Morgana, tell me what _you_ think about-" and Arthur interrupted by handing Merlin a tissue and saying, "No, Morgana, Merlin's had enough of your time. Tell me why haven't we sparred lately-" and Morgana smiled and just drank her tea.

The rain got harder, and Arthur told Merlin about his friend who'd lost his wallet and found it two weeks later where he'd left it on the field. It didn't matter that it was the most useless story Merlin had ever heard, it mattered that it was Arthur who was telling him, it meant something that Merlin wasn't bored out of his mind.

"Something wrong with your face?" Arthur asked, and Merlin became aware that he was frowning, but really trying to fight down the type of big smile that he knew made him look deranged.

When the woman arrived to take their registration form, Merlin felt proud of their little tent with chaise lounges set up against one wall and mounds of blankets. She accepted a cup of hot chocolate that Merlin fixed for her, feeling spacey but happy, and, situated, she fired off a few questions, like, "Name of scribe" to which Merlin answered, "Merlin," with a fluidity come of eight weeks at it, this was so normal now.

She also asked, "occupation," to which he said, "Slave to this guy," and Arthur said, "Slavery is different than service," and "it's not like you do much anyway."

The woman spoke loudly over them, "All the knights on this list are registered citizens of the Kingdom of Camelot?" to which Arthur said, "Of course," and Merlin said at the same time, "No, only about half."

A sudden pull at the atmosphere of the room told Merlin he'd just made some sort of error. Arthur stilled beside him, Morgana gripped her mug. Gwen and Lancelot stopped talking. Merlin grabbed at the fluttering remains of goodwill, and turned to say mostly to Arthur, seeking out his eyes, "We've got loads of unregistered, you know this."

"Is this true?" the woman said, looking down at the list in her hands.

"Ye- Yes," Merlin stuttered. "There are at least three on there I can name off the top of my head..."

"They are all of them talented men," Arthur ground out.

The woman looked from her list at Arthur.

"This is about your king's ban on magic, is it?"

"I'd appreciate it if you let this slide," Arthur said. "We're in a bit of a difficult situation, and I feel that the merit and dedication of these men should be enough to qualify them."

Gwen and Lancelot were listening, their discussion of Charlemagne completely halted. It had been pretentious anyhow, and Morgana sounded like she wanted to say something but was debating whether it would help.

"This will have to be put to a vote," the woman said. At least she seemed contrite, but if there was anything Merlin knew Arthur to hate most, it was pity. "I'll allow them to participate in the pre-joust, at least."

"Thank you."

Once she had left, after a few other questions which Merlin stayed silent during, and Arthur answered with a fake charm, the tent was horribly quiet.

Merlin finally spoke.

"I'm sorry, I didn't-"

"It doesn't matter," Arthur cut him off. He stood.

"It does. Please, I really didn't-" Merlin said. "Didn't know that it was against the rules, I mean- This whole time, Gwaine and Lancelot, and others...didn't you ever notice that-"

Lancelot came to them, and said with a fierce look on his face: "The fault is mine, Arthur. Please, let me-"

"Don't tell me this," Arthur said. "Any of you. Just don't. Now there'll be little chance any of those knights will be allowed to take part in the tournament, you do know that, don't you? Even if they pass the pre-joust."

Merlin tried to put things in perspective for a moment, a tactic he was trying to use when he found he was doing shit at his courses, when he'd crashed his mother's car, minorly, when he'd missed an important interview.

"The kingdoms, the rules, it's all a game anyways," he said. "Why should it matter, really, if a few people haven't registered properly?"

That may have been the wrong thing to say. He looked around at the four in the tent, from Gwen to Morgana to Lancelot, and finally at Arthur. All of them were squinting at him, like they were wondering if they even knew him. Perspective fluttered out the tent flap.

"I need some air," Arthur said.

"Or a drink," Morgana said. "I'll go with you."

She did touch Merlin briefly at the shoulder before they left, but it was cold comfort, and Gwen and Lancelot sat near the medieval space heater to play cards. He pulled out his PSP and just lost himself in it for awhile.

 

*

 

Two hours later, Morgana returned, and Merlin opened his eyes from where he was dozing, under blankets.

"You need about twice as much sleep as the rest of the world, don't you?" Morgana asked him.

"I have nightmares," he told her. This woke him, admitting that; he rarely told anyone.

"Mm," she hummed. "I have ridiculous dreams about birds, and sometimes Uther."

"Right."

"Sometimes about Arthur," she continued, and smiled when Merlin hid his face at the mention.

"Want to know a secret?" Morgana said.

Merlin nodded, feeling at his most pathetic, body heavy with illness, he probably should have stayed in bed. If Morgana said anything about Uther again he would probably cry.

"It'll be all right," she said.

"That's your secret?"

Merlin believed her and also he didn't. He wasn't one who usually tried too hard, not at things like this, not when it felt like all of his internal organs could come out worse for his efforts. Arthur had swords and also Merlin's heart sort of.

"Oh god," Merlin mumbled.

"Come on, up," Morgana said. He only sat when she ordered him, again. After which she said, "I think the sleep marks on your cheek might help your case. Arthur's a sucker for the downtrodden. Go, go. Shoo. Go speak to him."

"What?" Merlin asked.

"He's over at that big food tent at the border of Mercia. The imported ale, or whatever, with a few other knights."

"I don't-"

Morgana looked at him, and said, "If it helps, you owe it to him. You owe it to him to save the day."

Morgana went to Gwen and Lancelot, and Merlin wished he were any of them, all solid and beautiful, not someone who just kind of wanted to go back home and have his mother make him food. He could eat a whole pie right now, and he didn't even have the munchies.

"Must be stress," he said to himself. He got up anyways, bravest thing he'd ever make himself do he mentally promised.

And he left the tent as Gwen told Morgana, "The unspeakable hunting the uneatable. Oscar Wilde said that." And Morgana quoted back, "You cut the world into epigrams." And Merlin saw her tip her cup in Gwen's direction and Merlin dipped his gaze away, out of the tent to something else less contained, and more pertinent.

He picked up a pair of gloves as some excuse, and he went in search of Arthur.

Arthur was seated at a square table with a few other burly-types, a flagon of something sinister between them.

"Let me guess," Merlin said, approaching. "Made in the bathtub?"

"A sterile environment and perfectly potable," Arthur assured him tightly, just as Sir Martin said, "Only time will tell."

"Why are you over here, Arthur?" Merlin asked, because it felt rather important. "Mercia's not safe, especially this close to the competition."

"Thought you said this was just a game," Arthur countered. He glared into his cup.

"Yeah, well, Mercians can still beat you up over a game," he said. The men around him shifted, like they wanted to leave or possibly draw their swords at the implication that their prince would lose a fight.

"Could I have a word?" Merlin asked. He shifted as well, on his feet, and it felt like he was the only one standing in a room full of people drinking out of tankards, and his jacket was sodden with rain.

Arthur squinted at him for a long moment, and then sighed, to everyone it seemed. He stood, and came to where Merlin was standing, and allowed himself to be taken a few inconsequential feet to the side.

"Look," Merlin said, but when Arthur carefully pulled his arm away, Merlin didn't know how to proceed.

"I haven't got all day," Arthur said. "I'm to speak with the king, and it will most likely take all afternoon."

"I don't want this to become an issue between us."

"Us?" Arthur said.

"Yes, us," Merlin looked at him sharply, and if Arthur looked like he understood it was just a fleeting look. "You're the type to react dramatically, to take extreme measures, so I just wanted to make sure you knew that I didn't intend to ruin our chances in the joust, just as much as I don't want something stupid to happen. Like, I don't want you to stop speaking to me, or thinking that I don't-"

How did you finish a thought like that? Arthur either knew it or he didn't.

"You kept this from me," Arthur said. "You knew the whole time that we were harboring men who weren't citizens, you let me knight them and train them."

"Well, yeah," Merlin said. "Where'd you think Lancelot came from? Just appeared one day? If it's so important to you, why didn't you check his papers?"

"I'd counted on you," Arthur said, which didn't really make sense but Merlin was just so angry.

"Well maybe you should try doing something yourself for once," he said.

The men at the table were definitely listening. Merlin hoped Arthur would keep his voice down. He'd never expected to feel so destroyed on the LARPing grounds. This was supposed to be an escape from real life, with a fake set of emotions to go along with the fake economy, not ones more real than Merlin had felt since he was twelve and emo.

"You know what I don't understand," Arthur was saying. "Is how you can possibly feel like you're adding anything to the kingdom. Why are you still here?"

"Just a lot of hand waving and tagging along, is that it?" Merlin said, and he suddenly knew that was what Arthur saw him as. When Arthur came back from the training grounds Merlin usually just hung around to talk to him, must have come off as idle this entire time, useless, even though he was helping out the majority of the time.

"Right," Merlin said. He took a step back, wanted to say something like, "You don't know me at all," but this wasn't a film and he didn't really have correct personality to pull it off, it would only sound pathetic. Arthur must have seen something on his face, because he actually took a half step forward, chasing the motion.

"Well, now if it isn't-" a man said in the background, and Merlin said, "Arthur," and Arthur turned.

"Prince Arthur, then?" A man said. He sneered at the name, and Merlin's hand twitched, this was the wrong time to get in the way of either of them.

"That would be me, mate," Arthur said. He took a step to the side, rather than forward, and Merlin nearly laughed. Arthur was protecting him! As if he needed it.

Sir Martin nodded kindly at the stranger.

"Join us for a drink?" he asked.

The man ignored him in favor of staring Arthur down.

"I look forward to running you through," the man said. "At the joust of course. Friendly competition and all that."

Arthur took a step forward and the men at the table were on their feet.

A pressure built steadily, just there behind Merlin's left eyebrow, like he was either massively tired, or monumentally annoyed. The look on Arthur's face tipped the scale one way for certain, and it didn't matter what had been the initial cause, because he couldn't think clearly any longer.

He must have stepped forward, because Arthur was beside him now, putting a hand on his arm, but for once it wasn't enough. Arthur was saying, "I'm not sure what you're doing, but I'd advise-" and he distantly heard Sir Owaine say: "Hey, hey Merlin, my dearest friend," as if he were about to come round to clap him on the shoulder, placate him.

But then the action was done. Merlin felt the tension release and then he was gasping, hands on his knees, sweat at his hairline.

"Merlin!" Arthur said.

"I didn't do anything," he said quickly.

"Did you just kill me?" the Mercian asked, suddenly childish, also angry. He pointed at his chest, and said again, "me?"

"I didn't-" Merlin sobbed out.

"What have you done?" Arthur's voice came out like a harbinger of death, for that is what it was.

"I haven't done anything-"

"Oh good," Sir Roland said. He made to pick up his mug, muttering, "None noted his eyes flashing a golden hue-"

"But a reflection of the sun, I swear," Merlin said.

"We're in a tent," Sir Martin snapped. "How could there have been sun. Arthur, did your manservant just-"

But it was the way Arthur was looking at him that sealed it.

Merlin looked sadly to the Mercian standing before him, if only to avoid everything else. The man's face was stricken as one near death.

"You never told me," Arthur said, simple as that.

"I'm sorry," Merlin's mouth felt wrong around the words.

His sentence as well as pronounced, the Mercian collapsed back onto the ground, as if blown away by an invisible force. He lay where had fallen, not likely to move again.

Merlin was too angry to tell Arthur now, what he had suspected since he had begun LARPing, too cowardly to say "yeah, well...magic, my character might happen to have it. We should have suspected, what with the name and all," or some other blundering thing that Arthur would have laughed off anyways.

As he sped from the tent, shoving the flap aside which fell back with an unsatisfying "fwap" of wetted canvas, he heard Sir Roland say, "Well done, Arthur," and maybe Arthur responded but Merlin was too far off to hear by now, his ears turned the wrong direction, perpetually forward, and so were his feet, one after another, stalking him past the rows of tents, at least thirty of them in this row alone, because the Mercian kingdom was growing.

What had he done?

His feet mushed into the sodden grasses and there was a middle-aged man who was trying admirably to grow out full merchant-stubble on the weekend which he'd have to shave come Monday for his job at the bank, and Merlin passed a woman mending some dented helmets with a small hammer, in a skirt and blouse with a terrycloth bathrobe thrown over to protect her from the bright chill of sunlight through fog.

Moisture puffed by like trails along Merlin's face, and caught up in his cheekbone hollows, the dipped cloth of his neckerchief, and the grooves he was allowing Arthur to scratch out in his heart like his words were the claws of a Questing Beast and there wasn't a sorceress of the old religion for miles.

With it came the tightening of the abdomen, and an inability to work his throat without moving about some deep sorrow which had taken up residence there.

The running footsteps behind him had to be Arthur's.

"I was only just-" Merlin tried aloud.

"I don't believe you-" Arthur said, he tried to catch hold of Merlin, but Merlin shook him off. "You're leaving then, are you?"

"Don't worry, I'll be gone before you know it," Merlin said. He didn't look at Arthur. He walked faster, towards the parking lot.

"You can't be serious," Arthur called after him.

"Course not," Merlin yelled back. He wondered what he was going to do, hitchhike? Propositioning unknown drivers while dressed as he was might attract the wrong sort.

Thank goodness he was good at pickpocketing. Merlin grabbed Uncle G's Honda keys when he swept the man into an impromptu hug in the chemist's tent with an "oof" of surprise, and then took off.

 

*

 

"Hi it's me."

"Oh, Gwen, am I ever glad to hear from you."

"Merlin," she said.

"I know, I know."

"Merlin, this is serious. You killed a man last weekend."

"I know."

"With your _eyes_."

"You think I don't know that? If it helps matters, it was an accident. How does one fake-kill someone?"

"I'm not sure, but if your character has magic then it just happens, I suppose. It's like making a move in a board game, except this is real life."

"Gwen, I was just so _angry_."

"It's just rather embarrassing, is all," she said. "The only time players die is in jousts. There just wasn't a protocol for that."

Merlin started. He ran a hand over his face, imagining the trouble he'd caused for the kingdom of Camelot, and feeling only minorly contrite. He was still angry. "How did they handle it?"

"Well, Arthur and the others decided to drink a lot more, and gave the character the chance to pick himself up and leave. That way, the character could claim that everyone was properly soused and could argue that you'd used a spell that had knocked him unconscious, rather than effectively killing him."

"Well, that's good then," Merlin said. He lay back in his bed, elbows giving out in relief. "That settles it."

"It's all cleared up, yeah. I'll see you soon." Her voice only quavered once, just at the end. Gwen was strong when she needed to be, like the clarity of purpose stripped all uncertainty from her voice.

"I guess I'll see you next Monday then," Merlin cleared his throat.

"Monday?" she asked. "What's on Monday? I meant I'll see you Saturday, because you'll be coming."

"Midterm on Monday?" Merlin prompted. At her confused silence, he said: " _Chem midterm_ that I'll need to study for all weekend?"

"Oh," she said. "Right."

"I won't be coming Saturday," he clarified. There was a long pause, until he said: "Gwen...Camelot isn't real life."

"Of course not." She didn't sound sure.

"Remember how we're supposed to pass our courses?" He asked her. "To spend time reading great literature and getting arrested for public displays of indecency, to revere chemical formulas and ManU, not eat roast lamb and allow ourselves to be re-indoctrinated into some since-defunct religion by the priests of a medieval Christian god?"

Gwen hung up on him.

 

*

 

He missed the pre-joust.

 

*

 

"Of course Arthur passed the pre-joust, how could he not have?" Merlin said.

"Not keeping up with these things, are you?"

His roommate had, at one point, been trying to read, but he'd closed the book and tossed it over the side of the bed, and Merlin was man enough to admit that he was grateful. If his roommate ever had anything he needed to talk about, Merlin would be there for him. Merlin had said this aloud twice in the past few days and both times his roommate had thrown things at him and said, "What the hell is wrong with you? Talk or don't talk, just don't talk about talking. Do you know absolutely nothing of the code?

"If I were still a citizen of Camelot," Merlin told him. "If I _were_ , I wouldn't at all be surprised that members of other kingdoms were left in the dust."

"Didn't you say that Arthur had taken fencing as a child?" his roommate asked.

"Yes," Merlin beamed. "He's really great."

"Cheater," the roommate snorted.

Merlin felt the steady burn of alienation, and seriously suspected that if he were to look out of his window right now, onto the grassy hillock between the dorms, that the area would be rolling with townsfolk, himself not one of them, or at least Morgana and Gwen would be strolling arm in arm.

He slammed his laptop shut when someone tapped at his open door.

"What are you still doing here?" It was just Alan from down the hall.

"Here?" Merlin asked, twiddling his thumbs. He scrolled through his schedule, frighteningly clear since he was no longer LARPing. "Still?"

"Didn't you say you'd scheduled a meeting with some guidance counselor?"

Merlin swung his head to look at the clock, because this was modern day, not silly 6th century which lacked proper amenities.

Shit! No clock! Merlin opened his laptop again and clicked frantically at the _return_ 1 key to wake his laptop up.

  
_____________________  
 **1** Yes, Merlin is a mac user. 2  
 **2** Hipster.

 

As he ran down the two flights of old-smelling stairs from his dorm, out into the world, avoiding puddles and trees and students, the world suddenly filled with obstacles, Merlin's mind was buoyant with the possibility of speaking with an actual career counselor, a trained professional who had been trained to help people like him, someone who might do all the hard work for him. Merlin expected this to be much more gratifying than clicking 100 radio buttons on an online form and receiving an email that said, simply, "Baker."

Life wasn't so bad, he didn't need a medieval system to give his life structure, he didn't need friends who were more serious about a constructed reality than the reality of failing their courses. What would he do with the skills he learned LARPing, anyhow? Continue doing Arthur's chores forever? Allow him to drag him along to watch him play football well into finals, when he should be studying, and spend every weekend with Arthur shoving dubious pieces of raw-food pie in his mouth when he wasn't paying attention, and then waving over at the woman in a dowdy skirt at the table shouting, "He loves it, thanks," obnoxiously.

Walking into the counseling office was the easy part, turns out, shouldn't have hoped for anything because it was never, never what he got.

The horrifying face that was Uther's was the last Merlin had anticipated when he stepped through the door.

It was over in seconds. Merlin made a strangled noise, but not as loudly as he could have, so it was something of a win.

"How perfectly coincidental," Uther said.

"I know your real name," Merlin babbled. Uther stared him down, and the ringing of a distant phone rendered the scene even more uncomfortable.

"I see you in the service industry. Take this flier," Uther said and motioned to the stack with a gloved hand. He clicked a button on the intercom. "Next."

Although this helped him very little, Merlin left feeling better about his life, like he had just had an unexpected scrape with death but made it out alive, God Be Praised.

The next day he went home for the holidays and told his mother that he was considering a job in the entertainment business, maybe acting, and she laughed like it was a joke, and Merlin spent the next few weeks lying down, watching the rain.

 

*

 

Except that he didn't mope the entire time. He wasn't like that. He did harbor the occasional thought, like, maybe LARPing was the one thing in life that he'd regret not trying for. He wondered if idiots like Arthur were easy to meet, and he'd just never noticed, and if so how that was possible in the context of real life.

Once he went down to the pond and listened to some upbeat music that didn't fit the scene, and twice he spoke with Gwen over the phone, which warmed him to his toes. He received an actual hand-written letter from Morgana with a lipstick kiss at the bottom that should have made Merlin feel relieved, but really made him feel nauseous until he realized he hadn't eaten all day, so he got up to do that. He missed them both quite dramatically, because he could only be half-friends with them if he never went back, nothing to talk to them about over quick lunches on campus.

Nearly every afternoon he went to the pub or went to the crappy pizza place three blocks over with mates from sixth form, some of whom had started uni and some who worked, but none of them could say they'd taken on a second life over their new one. Merlin was not short of friends, he had some of the best, really, meeting wonderful people had never been a problem for him. He just wanted them all, and he knew that wasn't fair.

"Do you think you can only have one life?" Merlin asked Uncle G, who spent a lot of his time sitting at a work table he had set up in the old tool shed, mixing things and sketching out floorplans in turn.

"We only have the one, Merlin," Uncle G told him through glasses that had seen their time, but which were making a resurgence with the advent of Harry Potter.

"Oh," Merlin said. He had thought as much, felt on the edge of letting something wonderful go.

Merlin lurked around in the doorway, rain behind him just a cool splatter but he felt like he had been damp for months. He needed to go take a shower.

Uncle G looked up from his drawings, and Merlin felt like he was five years old when he met his steady gaze.

"You misunderstand me, boy," Uncle G said, with a severity that rang with conviction. "We only have the one life, so I would hate to see you waste it. Live it as richly as you can, for one day you might die suddenly of a stroke."

"So you're saying I should-"

"Get out of my sight and go make something of yourself."

Merlin slogged back through the garden, and then went inside to take a nap. He entertained the thought briefly, of texting Arthur or maybe quitting uni to become something other than a servant. His uncle might have it right, probably knew what he was talking about, but Merlin couldn't really imagine trying any harder than he already had. But it was a nice thought.

*

 

"Merlin!"

Merlin was procumbent in his very modern-day mattress when he heard the ping of the doorbell over the screeching of birdsong out in the garden. Some beast gave a final warble before Merlin tipped himself upwards, feeling that head rush that only came after an evening nap with one's face shoved unceremoniously into the pillows when one thought no one was watching and no one probably cared. He made it to the door only after yawning and cracking his shoulder and pushing his hands over the whole of his long face.

"Merlin darling," his mother called again. "Someone here to see you."

There was a jump of his heart, if he was to be honest, and he tried to quell it, because those who wish are often let down, while those who wait and see are often just pleasantly surprised.

OhgodhehopeditwasArthur.

Merlin came down the steep steps slowly, every detail suddenly sharp and contrasted to Merlin's self: individual bits of carpeting were sticking between his toes with every downward step, his mother's hair was pulled back messily and she seemed pleased with the boy who stood before her, the boy who was blond and the picture of strength in a shirt of mail and boots that meant business.

It was Arthur.

They both looked up at Merlin's approach, and Merlin ducked into the room, smile feeling lopsided as he looked first to his mother and said, "Mom, this is Arthur Pendragon," and for the moment he met Arthur's clear, unreadable look and then glanced away.

It was impossible to see Arthur logically, actually there in the room where Merlin had imagined him so many times before.

"Merlin, offer your friend some food," Hunith said, and then continued to Arthur: "We've just had supper dear, but you're welcome to anything."

"That's very kind of you-"

"Hunith," Merlin's mother said firmly, and smiled and went off who knew where.

"So." Arthur looked like he might like to be outside on a training grounds somewhere, scratching at the dirt with a prop-sword. This was compacted by the fact that he looked up in an uncomfortable sneer. Merlin held onto the handrail tightly.

"You came to Kettering," Merlin said in wonder.

"Right," Arthur said. "I must have gotten lost or-"

"Did you come to apologize, then? Because-"

"You have a rerebrace of mine," Arthur said. "It's worth quite a bit and I don't employ petty thieves."

"I haven't-"

"Oh, haven't you?" Arthur said quickly. "Ah well."

The quiet was really quite horrible. Merlin dove to save it, not moving a muscle.

"I do have a pen you lent me once, though," he said, frowning like he was serious.

"Well then," Arthur said. He seemed to cling onto this as hard as Merlin did. "Go fetch it then, would you?"

"Right," Merlin said. He stood there for a moment, and he felt a grin twisting at his features and Arthur was rolling his eyes and returning the smile and then Merlin said again, "Right," and ran up the stairs like he was in the thrall of some fever dream.

When he came downstairs, pen clutched in one hand, humming under his breath for no reason in particular, Arthur was no longer there.

 

*

He went to the kitchen and sat.

"Merlin," Hunith was at the table too, he hadn't noticed. "Did your friend leave?"

"I thought-" Merlin said. He flicked the pen across the table top. "-but no. That was strange."

He sat for a moment - maybe everything was backwards from how he had imagined it, that was always a possibility - until his mother closed her hand over Merlin's, forcing him gently to stop clenching his fingers into a fist.

She waited for him to look up at her to continue, and when she did it was with a kindness in her eyes that reminded Merlin of something he had forgotten. "Merlin, Arthur _likes_ you. He came here for you."

There was no way she could have known this, no way at all, but still...his mother was usually correct, it just took some mental adjustment to see it sometimes. This time he wanted her to be right, and it came easy.

Instead of truth crashing down around him with this, Merlin just saw the situation clearly. This was silly, a stress he had created for himself. Right now, Arthur was probably still leaving, slowly, and Merlin could stop him, couldn't he?

The thought prompted him to laugh, because maybe it could be that simple, and his mother looked back with a knowledge that her son had finally manned up.

Merlin just got up and shrugged, like a crazy person, feeling weird and at once miles better, realizing suddenly that nothing was the end of the world, rather it was the middle of things, that he had already gotten past the hard part and really all that was left for him was to walk out into the garden and say, "hullo there, Arthur, I see you drove two hours to come see me and apologize." to which Arthur may or may not say something like, "How gay is that, huh?" and then Merlin just had to agree.

Walking through his dark sitting room took at most a moment, opening the door, the work of a second.

Merlin walked out to a sky encrusted with stars, tiny pinpoints of light that felt like they were crushing down on him in the most dramatic of fashions when he realized at once that the garden was empty. Arthur was not stood shining in the moonlight by the rose hedges, touch lingering on a bloom as the attar soaked its way into a finger pad, and nor was he just exiting through the swinging, picketed gate like he was waiting for Merlin to call him back and then rush into his gauntleted arms.

"Oh bugger," Merlin said, quite inappropriately because Arthur was _gone_ and Merlin might have to ask his mother to lend him the car. He rushed back inside and grabbed the keys saying, "Be right back," and kissing his confused mother on the cheek so that he wouldn't have to explain.

He leaped outside again, into the 7pm chill, as it was late Autumn and dark, and why oh why hadn't Merlin thought about this clearly, clear enough at least to realize that early November was usually the backdrop for tragedy rather than a summery fairy tale?

He ran down the walk, and pushed through the gate, not jumping over as he probably could have, still hesitant from that one time when he was 13 and ripped his pants in one clean jag down the inseam. The gate slammed behind him, and he raced down the moonlit sidewalk, keys in his fist, to where his mother had managed to find a parking spot because Uncle G had set up a chem lab in their garage so they had to rely on semi-findable road parking.

His feet hit the pavement and he nearly forgot what the rush was about, simply letting momentum tip him forward towards the beat-up car by the corner, mind set on this immediate task. As such, he barely registered the voice, faraway but insistent.

"Merlin!"

It took three calls, maybe, until he slowed himself enough to turn around. And there, way down the road, maybe two corners down, Arthur was standing in the shadow of a very large hedge.

"Arthur?"

"Get down here you great idiot! Where are you going? This is not a relay race!" Arthur called as he walked towards him.

Merlin began to race back the way he had come, shoving the keys in his pockets, meaning he had to rush back to pick them up off of the pavement because he was wearing the trousers with the holes in them today, which was rather foolish and a waste of time that could be spent running towards Arthur.

As they neared each other, with half a block between them and in front of some unknown person's darkened home, Arthur jogged the final bit, looking refreshed, suddenly wearing just jeans and a polo shirt of undiscernable shade.

"Just popped off to change out of my armor," Arthur told him, as they both came to a standstill on the pavement. "Felt like an idiot talking to your mother all decked out in fake steel-plating."

"Oh, thought you'd-" Merlin was out of breath.

"Of course not," Arthur told him. "I'm not going to drive all this way only to drive back again. You're going to let me sleep on your sofa, and also provide me with tea, that's what's going to happen."

"Of course," Merlin said, and he nearly swooned with relief, the assurance all he'd needed.

Then came a bit of staring at one another, and Arthur pinched the bridge of his nose between two fingers, which just looked dear when he wasn't dressed as a killer. Instead of saying anything important, as the situation seemed to call for, Merlin blathered, asking: "Why do you have a different last name than your father?"

Arthur seemed game for this conversation, if bewildered.

"I don't?" he tried.

"Oh, come on, I met him in the counseling office," Merlin said. "Looks just as frightening without his crown, let me just say."

"My father works in politics," Arthur told him.

"Yes, yes."

"No, real politics," Arthur squinted at Merlin, waiting for a spark of comprehension. "As in, House-of-Lords-Politics."

"Then Uther-"

"Merlin, you realize that one of the main components of Live Action Roleplaying is the roleplaying," Arthur said. "Or perhaps you don't because you're rather the same in-character as out. Uther is not my father, just as Morgana is not my sister."

"Morgana is supposed to be your _sister_?" In any other situation, Merlin would have felt ashamed at coveting a piece of gossip like this.

"Yes, but it's hush hush," Arthur told him. "In any case, you're a complete dweeb and also very strange. And also, if you ever lie to me again, I'll have you thrown into the stocks."

"The stocks-"

"Just never lie to me again."

"Right."

Arthur smiled at him with an unarguable fondness, and patted Merlin on the shoulder in a brusque manner like it was all settled, and then Merlin kind of shoved at Arthur's arm until he had manhandled him into the right position, and kissed him slow against the unmovable fence.

 

*

 

The next weekend, while Merlin suffered the direct sunlight that freshed out the entire dirt ring for once, somehow light in January, Gwen and Morgana held tight to scarves and passed along a bag of sweets.

The contestants trailed out onto the jousting grounds, some dusty and already sweating at the temples, hair matted from practice. Arthur was easy to spot in red, the ridiculous cape dragging out behind him, trailing in the dust, his armor like an exposed exoskeleton, telling and currently too bright to look at.

Arthur jogged up to the edge, and accepted the pats and shouts of their cut numbers. But his challenge was all for Merlin, as he reached a hand over the edge and said: "Let's have it then."

"Wha?" Merlin wondered.

The roiling mass quivered and roared in the distance and all around behind them.

"Your neckerchief, Merlin," Arthur said, and smiled a sarcastic look to any third-party who might have been paying attention. "That's what it's _for_ isn't it?"

Merlin frowned and tugged off his cleaning rag that he still wore secured about his neck, and kind of shoved it at Arthur. Arthur frowned and made a face that meant something, until Merlin said, "Oh, you want me to-"

"Yes, Merlin, for God's sakes hurry up will you," as Merlin tied the rag onto Artur's forearm, near the crook where vambrace met mail.

"For luck?" Merlin hedged. He was still unsure if Arthur was looking for a token or someone to shine up his shoulder plate.

Arthur seemed appeased, in any case. He smirked at everyone, and then a final time, eyes meeting Merlin's in a daring manner, and then trotted off to join the other tin men in the arena.

They won the tournament by a mile.


End file.
